Don’t Neglect the Obvious

Because we often focus on PPC Ad Writing tips and techniques that go beyond the basics and the obvious, I sometimes feel that we might unintentionally send the wrong message — that readers might feel like we don’t believe the basics to be fundamental.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth. The basics are indeed foundational and it’s always worth circling back to them when it comes to PPC Optimization, and this Win of the Week is a nice example of that:

So which ad won? I’ll give you a hint: it’s the ad that better conformed to basic PPC Ad Writing Strategy.

Ad A won because it repeated the keyword “Gifts” in the first line of ad copy, and because it did so within the context of buyer motivations: “Popular Gifts forr Friends & Family!”

The losing ad, on the other hand, gives me information, in terms of size of selection, but neglects buyer motivation, focusing on the word “Dolphin” rather than “Gifts.”

And that’s why this slight change was able to generate a 72% life in CTR. We’ve had larger wins this week, but none illustrated the PPC Ad Writing Basics like this contest did. So by all means, employ all the advanced techniques you can, but don’t neglect the obvious basics:

Make liberal use of keyword terms within the ad itself (and not just in the headline), and

Focus on addressing buyer motivation rather than on simply info-stuffing the ad